Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
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| Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story | |
|---|---|
 Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story |
|
| Directed by | Rawson Marshall Thurber |
| Produced by | Stuart Cornfeld Ben Stiller |
| Written by | Rawson Marshall Thurber |
| Starring | Vince Vaughn Christine Taylor Ben Stiller Justin Long Rip Torn |
| Music by | Theodore Shapiro |
| Cinematography | Jerzy Zielinski |
| Editing by | Allan E. Baumgarten |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) |  June 18, 2004 |
| Running time | 92 min |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $20,000,000 |
| Official website | |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story is a 2004 comedy film from 20th Century Fox, written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber and starring Vince Vaughn, Christine Taylor, Ben Stiller, and Rip Torn. The film focuses on a rivalry between the owners of Average Joe's, a small gym, and Globo-Gym, a competing big-budget gym located across the street. Peter LaFleur (Vaughn), the owner of the smaller gym, has defaulted on his mortgage and enters a dodgeball tournament in an attempt to earn the money necessary to prevent his gym from being purchased by Globo-Gym. Globo-Gym enters a team in the tournament in an effort to ensure that Average Joe's gym fails.
Dodgeball received generally good reviews, with a 70% average rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[1] The film was largely a commercial success, grossing over $30 million in its first week and eventually grossed more than $114 million domestically.
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[edit] Plot
Peter LaFleur (Vaughn) is the laid-back owner of Average Joes, a failing gym with a handful of loyal, but eccentric, members, including Steve the Pirate (Tudyk), Justin (Long), Gordon (Root), and employees Dwight (Williams) and Owen (Moore). His rival, White Goodman (Stiller), owner of the glamorous Globo-Gym located across the street, has purchased Average Joe's defaulted mortgage, meaning that Peter must raise $50,000 in 30 days in order to redeem the equity of redemption on the about-to-be-foreclosed mortgage, or else Goodman will successfully foreclose upon Average Joe's Gym and demolish it for a parking garage. Working on this transaction is attorney Kate Veatch (Taylor), whom White attempts, and fails, to charm, although she and Peter develop a friendship despite her role in his business troubles. After various half-hearted attempts at money-raising fail, Gordon declares that they can win the money needed to pay the redemption costs by winning a dodgeball competition in Las Vegas, and begin to train to enter the tournament.
By spying on them, White learns of their plans to enter the contest, and decides to enter it himself to make sure he gets Average Joe's gym, forming a super-powerful team which he names the Purple Cobras. After the Average Joe's team manages to enter the tournament by default (after their first opponents – a Girl Scout troop – are disqualified after failing a drugs test), they are approached by Patches O’Houlihan (Torn), a legendary but now wheelchair-bound dodgeball player who offers to train them. Despite possessing questionable and painful training methods (such as throwing wrenches at them), the team begin to steadily improve. Kate – herself a talented player – agrees to join their team after finally reaching her limit with White’s inept, arrogant attempts at courting her (including having her fired).
At the tournament, the team proves to be an underdog success, who wins over the audience. Despite numerous set-backs, Average Joes successfully make it through to the final, where they will face White’s team. The night beforehand, the team's confidence takes a severe hit when Patches is inadvertently killed by a falling billboard. White meets with Peter and offers him one hundred thousand dollars to hand over the Average Joe's deed and forfeit the upcoming finals match. The team begins to drift apart, several are distracted away from the final, Steve having been discouraged by Peter and a hate attack, while Justin has been asked by his classmate Amber to help them in their championship. Justin arrives on time but they do not have enough players turn up to compete. Peter – his confidence shattered – seems to be about to desert his friends when he bumps into Lance Armstrong, who motivates him to return. He arrives just before the Average Joes are to be forfeited from the final, but a tie-breaking vote from judge Chuck Norris allows them to play.
The final match, pits the Average Joes against the Purple Cobras led by White. After a close final, the tournament comes down to a sudden-death playoff between White and Peter; inspired by a vision of the deceased Patches, a blindfolded Peter manages to dodge White’s shot and strike him, winning the match. Although White reveals that Peter did, in fact, sell the gym the night before, Peter replies by revealing that he had used the money to bet on Average Joes to win (at 50-to-1 odds), winning enough to buy a controlling stake in Globo-Gym (including Average Joes), thus buying White out.
The movie ends with Average Joes’ going on to be a success, and White drowning his sorrows in junk food, becoming obese as a result.
The fictional publication mentioned in the movie, "Obscure Sports Quarterly," has spawned a website of the same name.[2]
[edit] Original ending
In a DVD extra, director Rawson Marshall Thurber shows a joke "director's cut" with the movie ending in the Average Joes' defeat. In that version, the line of dialogue "They came here for absolutely nothing" was the last of the movie, immediately preceding the credits roll. Thurber states in the DVD commentary that, due to poor screen testing, the studio forced him to replace that ending with one mandated by the studio, which was the one seen in theaters. Thurber further states in the DVD commentary that he was so incensed by the studio's actions that he "left the film for a week," and that he continues to believe that depicting the defeat of the Average Joes was "the right way to end the movie!" Thurber has also said that in the early drafts of the script, the Average Joes did lose, but the plot concept was "balanced" by one depicting Steve the Pirate returning from an absence with a large amount of money he had won at Treasure Island after a person driving through the Fremont Street Experience (That particular section of Fremont Street is closed to traffic in the real world), played by Thurber, told him to go back there. Thurber's disapproval is further reinforced by the treasure chest filled with money that Peter wins saying "Deus Ex Machina" (literally: "God out of a machine") which is Latin for a nonsensical plot device used to resolve a story with no regard to its logic. In Greek theatre, actors portraying Olympian gods would literally descend on apparatus and dictate terms or events to resolve difficult situations, hence the pejorative term for contrived resolutions. Its purpose was to show how much the director disliked the new "happy" ending. Also, the part where Ben Stiller's character criticizes the ending could also be Thurber getting out his opinion to the viewers.
[edit] Cast
| Character | Portrayed by |
|---|---|
| Peter LaFleur | Vince Vaughn |
| White Goodman | Ben Stiller |
| Kate Veatch | Christine Taylor |
| Patches O'Houlihan | Rip Torn |
| Justin Redman | Justin Long |
| Gordon Pibb | Stephen Root |
| Owen | Joel Moore |
| Dwight Baumgarten | Chris Williams |
| Steve the Pirate | Alan Tudyk |
| Fran Stalinovskovichdavidovitchsky | Missi Pyle |
| Me'Shell Jones | Jamal Duff |
| Cotton McKnight | Gary Cole |
| Pepper Brooks | Jason Bateman |
| Young Patches O'Houlihan | Hank Azaria |
| Tournament Referee | Al Kaplon |
| Lance Armstrong | Himself |
| Chuck Norris | Himself |
| Dodgeball Chancellor | William Shatner |
| David Hasselhoff | Himself |
| Amber | Julie Gonzalo |
| Derek | Trever O'Brien |
| Blade | Rusty Joiner |
| Blazer | Brandon Molale |
| Lazer | Kevin Porter |
| Mr. Ralph | Curtis Armstrong |
| Twiggy the Water-Skiing Squirrel |
[edit] Reception
Critics were quite divided on their reviews for Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. Slant Magazine dismissed the movie as "a less-than-one-joke film"[3] while TV Guide remarked that Ben Stiller "doesn't know when to stop."[4] Other critics, such as the Boston Globe praised Stiller's satiric take on male virility and praised the chemistry between Vince Vaughn and Christine Taylor.[5]
Despite the mixed reviews, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story proved to be a large success upon its release. In its first week, the film grossed over $30 million, eventually grossing a domestic total of $114,324,072.[6]
[edit] Awards
- 2005. Won BMI Film Music Award, Theodore Shapiro
- 2004 Nominated ESPY Best Sports Movie
- Won MTV Movie Award Best Villain, Ben Stiller
- 2005 Nominated MTV Movie Awards
- Best Comedic Performance: Ben Stiller
- Best On-Screen Team: Vince Vaughn, Christine Taylor, Justin Long, Alan Tudyk, Stephen Root, Joel Moore, Chris Williams
- 2005 Nominated Razzie Award Worst Actor: Ben Stiller (Also for Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Along Came Polly (2004), Envy (2004) and Starsky & Hutch (2004).)
[edit] References
- ^ Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes.
- ^ www.obscuresportsquarterly.com.
- ^ Slant Magazine - Film Review: Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.
- ^ TV Guide review of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.
- ^ Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story Movie Review - Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.
- ^ DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story (2004) - Weekend Box Office Results.
[edit] External links
- Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story at the Internet Movie Database
- Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story at Rotten Tomatoes
- Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story at Metacritic
- Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story at Box Office Mojo
| Preceded by Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban |
Box office number-one films of 2004 (USA) June 20, 2004 |
Succeeded by Fahrenheit 9/11 |
